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Wal-Mart Asked to Drop Christian Video Game
doug141 writes "Liberal and progressive Christian groups say a new computer game in which players must either convert or kill non-Christians is the wrong gift to give this holiday season and that Wal-Mart, a major video game retailer, should yank it off its shelves.Players can choose to join the Antichrist's team, but of course they can never win on [his] side. The enemy team includes fictional rock stars and folks with Muslim-sounding names, while the righteous include gospel singers, missionaries, healers and medics."
I have read the article and still can't tell whether the game makers are actually serious or not. I laughed with the it's ok to kill as long as you prey really hard - satire worthy of Stephen Colbert. Either way, I think, the game designers are worthy of our greatest of laughter.
Sounds like a pretty awful game, tasteless and cliched but worst of all unbalanced...the anti-christ team can't even win. But why give them the handy excuse of being censored for its impending failure? I say let them sell it, and let the free kill them.
Plus, all media must be protected...even, and especially, the shitty stuff like this.
It's funny to me how religious followers are always offended when someone pokes fun at their beliefs, but then they have no problem being judgemental, insulting and forget they are part of one of the most violent and viscious organizations in history. (see: Crusades, Persecution, Inquisition...) Personally I would have made it so the anti christ could win. When you won every corner would suddenly have a starbucks, HMA's would be worse than Stalin, everyone would be driving a gas guzzling SUV and our president would be satan himself... ... wait a sec... crap...
"It pushes a message of religious intolerance."
;)
Talk about realism in video games! I'm amazed! How did they get it so life-like?
They don't dislike the 'Left Behind' book and game series because it's inaccurate. They dislike it because it's TOO accurate. It shows how religious people really think and act. Okay, so maybe the Pastor at the local church doesn't use a gun to convert people, but the message is the same: Convert to my religion or burn in everlasting flames. And maybe if they left it at a statement, it wouldn't be so bad. But we still have clergy that do completely immoral and unethical things, sometimes not even to further their cause, but for personal gain. And they get away with it.
I used to call myself Christian, but not really name which type (Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, etc). Now, I say I believe sort of like they do, but with a few major differences:
God doesn't care what religion you are, so long as you are a good person.
God doesn't care what name you call him by.
The Bible was written by man, not God. It was then translated by man, not God. Several times. It is a tool to guide you to the correct path, and nothing more. All holy books serve this same purpose, no matter the religion. Church is also such a tool. (I won't get into corruption, that's a long debate.)
Instead of merely tolerating other religions, I embrace them. They are God's methods of helping us be better people.
So far, I'm pretty much alone in my religion. I don't imagine I'll be setting up a church any time soon.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
A progressive Christian is someone who actually does what the Bible says to do: Love one's neighbor more than one's self Loves God with all of their heart, soul and mind. It's pretty much that simple. Any person that calls themselves a Christian but hates homosexuals, Muslims, non-Christians, liberals, etc. is sorely deluding themselves.
Yeah but once a Christian takes up arms to defend his faith he's not actually a Christian anymore is he?
I thought it would be a cold day in their Hell before I did but...
Unfortunately, creating this game is Constitutionally protected free speech, and selling it is completely up to Wal-Mart and other retailers. I think it was done in very poor taste but should be treated no differently than GTA or any other games that are similarly in bad taste.
Clones are people two.
Exactly - a "progressive" christian is "a Chrsitain". As my favorite t-shirt says: "The Christian Right is Neither"
What's a "progressive Christian"?
Is it like a critical fairy tale believer?
Nah dude, it's totally OK to dis other people's religion.
Yeah yeah, I know--all Christians are pigheaded morons who take the bible literally.
And moreover, their whole religion is a fairy tale.
See because, it's OK for you to hate and belittle their religion, while at the same time damning all the Christian believers for being bigots.
I guess it's OK to be a bigot, as long as you're not Christian.
Latewire
Progressive Christian is a believer in one God - three persons (as defined in Nicene Creed) who does NOT engage in bibliolatry (i.e. a belief that every single word of the Bible must be taken literally, and for whom Bible is the final authority and not God. Jesus didn't write any books but revealed divine truth to his selected followers only. Hence, continuous Apostolic succession is so important in the Church, and not many churches can lay a claim to that. As a matter of fact the idea that you can "start" a church is absurd, just as the idea that someone in England, decides to "start" a kingdom and proclaim themselves a king of England).
A progressive Christian reads the Bible and understands it for what it is, a collection of parables and rarely historical accounts of actual events, the purpose of which is to always illustrate a point that God is actively involved in his creation, encouraging trust in him (which means believing his word i.e. believing that he has done or will do what he has promised).
A progressive Christian is living in the present, and applies the word of God to his situation and does not try to bend the world to fit the Bible and live in the past, avoiding relativism, a great peril of modern world on the way.
Perhaps that clears it somewhat.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
I'd actually like to see this thing in action. Who cares what the slant or "message" may be? It's up to intelligent people to decide for themselves what they like, think or believe. And we'll never evolve as a people, a species or a culture if we constantly go about trying to stop people from seeing and thinking things.
It was only yesterday when I had a moment of reflection on my own changes in perceptions of things. I was born in 1968 and was very young when I first saw Star Wars. During that same area in time, I saw a black bell on a daycare building and thought to myself, "That bell looks like Darth Vader!" I now think that Darth Vader looks like a bell. The difference in perception is pretty clear to me but it also goes to show how minds change, develop and evolve over time and with life's experience.
So yes. Let it be. Let kids play games where they are evangelical Christians or characters from greek or other ancient mythology and legend. You cannot really condemn one game without condemning them all.
Here's one take on the game I'd like to hear: Who is that nut always trying to get violent video games banned? Yeah, that guy. What's his take on the game? "Convert or Die!" sounds pretty gruesome to me...
But I do know about Christian theology. It's my understanding that Jews accept Jesus as a teacher, but *not* as God. Muslims accept Jesus as a prophet, but not as God. Of course, I disagree with them. I believe that Jesus was a real, live person walking on earth about 2,000 years ago, and that he was also God of the universe.
Slashdot is not known for editorial accuracy. I doubt that Muslims are the non-Christian "star" of the books. Pragmatically speaking, it seems to me that if all Christians are missing, then the 1.2 billion Muslims will be relatively more prevalent. The blurb reads "muslim-sounding" names - showing how ignorant we Americans are. Since we're the population minority in the world, almost everyone has a "foreign-sounding" name.
According to one line of Christian theology, all Christians are removed from earth by God during what is called the rapture. After this, there are *no* Christians until some people rediscover what the Bible teaches. During this season of time, people can become Christians, and the idea is that these new believers have a compelling reason to challenge others to become Christians, because at the end of that short period of time, everyone who chooses to reject Christ will be separated from all that is good, gentle, loving and peaceful for all of eternity.
Here's the deal. Either Jesus Christ is God, or He's not. If someone teaches that He is not God, according to Christian teaching, and because of the law of non-contradiction, Jesus cannot simultaneously be God and "not God" in the same time and relationship. Since Judaism, Islam, and Christianity teach different things about Jesus, man's relationship to God and how it may be possible to reconcile to God, logically either all three beliefs are wrong, or one is right and the others cannot be right.
Christian tolerance teaches me to tolerate people's rights to choose whatever religious belief they want, even if they are wrong. Christian love teaches me to tell people who God is, and how to reconcile relationship with Him, because I want everyone to have the kind of relationship with God that I have.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
No, the bible doesn't say to hate homosexuals. It may say that it's not right to commit homosexual acts, but ffs, everyone does wrong, and the bible doesn't say to hate everyone because they do wrong. God hates the sin, not the sinner (similar to "don't kill the messenger" I guess).
which is totally what she said
Any person that calls themselves a Christian but hates homosexuals, Muslims, non-Christians, liberals, etc. is sorely deluding themselves.
Ok, but how does this square with Leviticus:
If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads
Are you suggesting that you should love homosexuals even while you put them to death? 'cause that's a subtlety that may not be so reassuring to the homosexuals at the receiving end of your loving.
Seriously, how you can be both progressive and follow the Christian bible is a mystery to me. I know there are in fact a lot of progressive christians, even gay christians, but it doesn't make any sense to me. The book itself contains many hateful passages like the one above. And it's a religion, which means it's not supposed to be subject to rational thought - you take it on faith, unquestioning. If you are both progressive and christian does that not mean that you've decided to disregard the offensive passages? And once you do that, is there any faith left in what you do? If you can rationalize away the killing gays bit, why not the thou shalt not kill bit? Faith is an all or nothing business I thought...
yp.
Are you retarded? Or just naive?
Let's say, for example, that I live in a Sharia-based society. Should I just accept these crippling religious laws because it is wrong to judge groups of people? Can't I just reject the whole insane pile? Must I judge every single one of these woman-hating intolerant lunatics individually?
Or let's say that I live in a Xian theocracy. Again, is it wrong to judge these witch-burning adulturer-stoning fucktards en masse? Are you truly insisting that I shake every single narrow-minded pinched-souled puritanical tyrant's hand and get to know them?
I say that it is fine to judge groups of individuals if those individuals chose to join those groups. After all, it's what they want. They want to be grouped together with others of the group! Otherwise, why'd they join the group?!? I suspect many of them are weak-minded, but that's all the more reason to judge them all at once.
Man, you really need that seminar!
You're taking the verse out of context. Leviticus is a book of rules established for the nation of Israel because they were too stupid for the Ten Commandments to be sufficient. They were harsh, but if you look at Israel's history anything less than that and they would get crazy deep into every last sin imaginable.
These rules were only applicable to the ancient nation of Israel.
This is not to say that other parts of the Bible do not condemn homosexuality, but it is to say that Christians who cite the Bible as a source for their hatred of homosexuals are twisting the work for their own ends. Homosexuality may be wrong, but hating homosexuals isn't right.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Atheists believe the only consequence to actions in life is if you get caught...
Uhmm... no. Atheists don't believe in god(s). Most of them do believe in consequences to actions.
People who have an absolute hatred of a mass group as a whole scare me.
I agree, and your incorrect generalization of atheists scares me.
"christians are the reason america has taken a turn for the violent. If you believe in an afterlife - you scare the fuck out of me. You don't have the same commitment to THIS life that I do."
.... I saw an opportunity to really broaden the conversation and broaden the constituency. I'm really over this whole polarization thing."
I disagree. Christians are not the ones that have taken a turn for the violent, 'christians' have.
For instance, I find it reprehensible that someone can defend the combined ownership of guns, the belief in a death penalty and the hatred of abortion.
I agree with the last, but the other portions are just as engrained in todays 'christian' beliefs as if it says in the Bible "Take up guns and smite thy neighbor". Bullshit. These people are not Christians, nor should you believe they are. If they truly believed in an afterlife, they'd have changed their ways a long time ago.
What was it, just about two weeks ago, the president of the Christian Coalition resigned over disagreements with where he thought the organization should go. His claim was that he felt that these people were too involved in trying to legislate moralistic viewpoints and ignoring the world at large:
"just a basic philosophical difference
He had asked that they back off on abortion and gay marriage, and focus on doing what Christ would have liked them to focus on -- decreasing the burdens of the poor, treating God's lands as it said in the Bible, increasing giving to charitable organizations -- more or less, changing things that will directly impact his people and have them focus their moral attitudes within, and not with forcing others to legally follow their perspective. If we change the laws to enforce a singular belief system, this is no choice, and we are no better than organizations like the Taliban -- who have increasingly been getting more liberal over the last few years (they just made changes to their charter saying they will not kill women for disobeying them without at least giving them one warning, and then one beating after that...my gawd! These guys have turned into regular Al Frankens over night!).
But seriously, there are a lot of Christians out there that are nothing what you think of when you think of all the assholes ruining the name.
(And yeah, I know I have a long way to go as well...I just try not to be a COMPLETE hypocrite about the whole thing)
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
Here's a good theological question:
If there is a God, and he has been around since the beginning of creation, why do you think you are allowed to define was he does and does not care about?
This isn't a troll, this is actually a serious (and much-debated) critique to your argument. Thomas Aquinas definitively believed that the Christian God was immutable - that is, he definitely was either for or against slavery, definitely for or against homosexuality, definitely for or against coveting your neighbor's wife.
So if two people stood up, and one said, "I believe God does care that you call him by the correct name" and one said, "I believe God does not care that you call him by the correct name", then only one of these people was right.
Now here's the interestint thing: if you reject Aquinas's notion - that is, you think both people are right, that we can manifest our own God for our own purposes - then you must reject the existence of God, because at that point there can be no such thing as an eternal God because our own God dies with us.
So in order to believe in God, you must believe that God has always existed AND that he is immutable. So then the question merely becomes "who has the right idea about God?" And while that question is of course unanswerable, it is very easy for me to say that your idea of God and the Christian idea of God are incompatible.
And only one of you is right.
The whole system is designed to discourage combat, but it realizes that in any conflict, sometimes you don't have much of a choice. If someone comes at you with a gun, you either die or your fight back to protect yourself.
THIS. IS. NOT. CHRISTIAN.
In this game, the existance of God and Heaven (and by contrast, Satan and Hell) is an established fact. If the good guys die, they go to Heaven. If the bad guys die, they go to Hell. Right? And furthermore, the game makes it explicitly clear (even though no mortal can have this knowledge) of exactly who is Good and Evil. It's all very simple.
Now, if you're (I'm using the omniscent "you" here) a good Christian, you don't WANT people to go to Hell, correct? You want to save everyone you can.
Furthermore, if the game labels you as "Good," then your in-game salvation is assured.
So then, given these conditions which the game has (farsically) set up... why would you EVER kill someone? Even in self-defense?
If you kill them, they go to Hell, and you potentially go to Hell.
If you convert them first, they go to Heaven and you go to Heaven.
If you die non-violently, you go to Heaven and - just maybe - seeing your lamb-like sacrifice inspires them to rethink their faith. This opens the POTENTIAL of them going to Heaven where none really existed before.
And finally, even if all the Christians die... that's what's going to happen anyway. Christ returns, all the evil-doers are thrown down, etc etc. The ending is pre-ordained. There is no other course. Evil cannot win.
There is logically NO REASON to risk your mortal soul in the game. If you think through the possibilites, non-violence is the only logical conclusion one can reach - just as Jesus taught.
(and, needless to say, in real life where you CANNOT know whether the person in front of you is Good or Evil, there is even LESS justification for killing them)
Yet the game allows for violence... it allows "Christians" to kill the "Evil" and get away with it scot free. It removes the moral burden of hanging onto your beliefs EVEN if it means your death. (like, you know, Jesus was willing to do.)
It pays lip service to the idea of converting people to "Good" while not really making the player behave in a "Good" way in all but the most superficial ways. And like so many others, when the chips are down, you're allowed to compromise your morals and commit "Evil" anyway... and the game lets you get away with it with just a little prayer.
And I can think of little that could be more anti-Christian than this sort of amoral evil nonsense parading around AS Christian.
Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.
Could someone go look at a history book and point me to the part that says, "this war was caused solely by religious intolerance."
Here's the thing - war is almost always about things like money or land, and only very occasionally about things like freedom and liberty (those are also usually the ones that don't work out,) and never ever about saving people's souls. Sure a few of the boots on the ground might believe that they are doing god's work, hell even a leader might believe that. But look at any conflict ever, and the real motivation for the people really in power is always money or land, and the power that goes with controlling it.
Don't believe me? Here are a few "religious" or "philosophical" conflicts and a modicum of background.
Moor invasion and the reconquista (Spain) - Moors filled a power vacuum left by the collapse of the Roman empire - the reconquista was a long process of feudal warfare involving carving out of small kingdoms, pillaging cities and demanding tribute. Eventually motives merged with empire building and the Holy Roman Empire (more empire than holy.) Religious motives provided a convenient excuse.
Crusades - the middle east at the time was a major crossroads for trade caravans. Anyone who controlled the trade routes stood to make huge profits. Religious motives provided a convenient excuse.
Thirty years war - All about the structure of Germany, and who controlled what - the French wanted a fractured Germany, the Austrians wanted an Empire. Religious motives (i.e. catholic v. protestant) provided a convenient excuse.
Every war ever involving Israel/Palestine. All about immigration and forced emigration, and which readily identifiable groups control which resources. There is a very small band of hospitable land and lots of desert and mountains. Egypt, Syria, and whoever is supporting the Palestinians this week, want an ally - the Jews ain't it, for a variety of political, reasons relating more to the scarcity of good land than the fact that they are Jews, not Muslims.
The Iraqi civil war (or is it still sectarian violence?) There is a massive power vacuum, because the only source of power (us) doesn't want to be there. Someone will fill it, and once again there is a convenient religious difference so that people can identify and support their friends/village, rather than someone who would distribute resources less favorably.
To any history majors - I realize there are gross simplifications, but the point stands - it's ALWAYS about who has what, not who believes what.
They didn't kill school children for not wearing the veil, they killed them for being part of the wrong group. If it wasn't a "religious" conflict, it would be an ethnic, social, or class struggle. All groups divide us into us v. them mentalities. In some unfortunate cases it is religion in others it is something else (see US civil war, Darfur, Rowanda, Bolshevism , French civil war, Nazism, etc, etc, etc.)
The history of humanity is one of conflict. We should try to minimize it, but blaming it on religion is misunderstanding the problem.
I'm sure you'll love them to death, just like Leviticus 20:13 says to.
Nice way to completely misunderstand his point.
Like me, he trusts in what he knows. That is a kind of faith just as believing in a god is faith.
When I say I believe in what I see, I'm expressing the faith I have in that my eyes see things the way they are, and that what my eyes see is the truth. You can't prove without a doubt that it is, since no human being on this earth has complete and utter knowledge of all and everything. We just have to trust in reason and logic, and THAT is our faith.
I really hate how bible-pushers can tell me to believe in God just because a book says he exists. Yes, of course that's faith, and sure, it might inspire hope in some people. But I can't see the point in believing in these fairytale stories 'just because'. It makes no sense to me, not when there's so much else in this world that has reason and logic on it's side.
I believe water is wet, because I can actually touch it. I believe fire is hot, because I actually burn myself if I get too close. I don't believe in God because there is no further proof to his existence than "the bible says so". And that's just not enough for me...
So christians, believe in whatever you want. I can't, and won't, stop you. But please, PLEASE, stop with your bullshit "because I say so" rhetoric and backwards logic. If you don't bother me, I won't other you.
Blog -
But -- and pardon my French, here, I usually try to keep it relatively clean on Slashdot -- it's these fuckhead zealots that get all the attention, thus smearing their shitstink on the rest of us (especially those who happen to share their skin color/place of birth). I don't like being assumed to be a right wing evangelical nutjob just because I live in the US, and it pains me every time I hear someone of Arabic (or anything even remotely mistakable for Arabic!) descent referred to as a terrorist.
I suspect the hatred you're seeing on Slashdot is more a hatred of self righteous dogma and fanaticism (and we all know that whenever one has dogma, one ends up with fanatics - wanna rag on M$, anyone?) than a hatred of moderate Christians. Most Christians are quite reasonable people; however, one can't help but notice that the Christian doctrine offers a lot of ways to justify acting like a turd (like most religious doctrines). So I certainly am not willing to exonerate the religion wholesale in this matter - according to the Bible, it is okay (some might even say it's one's duty) to kill nonbelievers if they won't convert, so contrary to your statement, this game does represent Christianity in a very accurate way. You are correct that it may not represent the qualities of its followers, and you've thus stumbled upon the contradiction inherent in being a moderate in any religion with a "frozen" holy book: if you disagree with some of the messages in the Bible, then you're just picking and choosing anyways, so what's the point of leaving the stuff you disagree with in the text at all? If there is so much interpretation required to understand God's true message, why not just edit the damn thing and be done with it? Yeah, yeah, not allowed to change the book, blah blah. Whatever. The point is that it's retarded, and when you leave crap like that in a holy book, assholes are going to read it and take it to heart, thus elevating their disgusting inclinations to hate and kill to the status of "holy."
And that's why we end up with games like this. Even if most individual Christians bear no responsibility, it is Christianity's fault...